Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1887-11-05
BY THE MORAY FIRTH.
Life aud Customs of the fisher'F"'h
on tne scottish Coast.
London Graphic.l

London Graphic.l
Keen and strong and steady tonight,
in the gathering dusk, the wind Is
coming up the firth out of the east.
Barking clouds roll low along the sky,
and before the breeze the waves in their
uOnumbered hosts, like dark hussars
white. crested, ride past to break
upon the beach-sands OF yonder
island at Fort George. The full,
deep gale brings with it ont OF
the shadowy east the health OF hun.
dred tumbling seas, and sets the glad
life dancing in lip and eye and heart (;
while the music of the rushing waves,
ike the drums Of far-off armies, stirs
the soul with the daring of great pur-
poses. Little need, therefore, is there
to pity the fsherwomen and children lar
out at the edb.tide edge gathering bait
among the reefs. Clear are their eyes
as the sea. pools over which they bend,
and while sun and wind have made their
skins brown as the wet sand itself, many
drawing-room beauty would give
her diamonds for such a wealth
of raven hair. Even at this dis
lance the happy voices OF the chill
dren, a pleasant murmur, speak OF the
free and simple hearts. Sport on, happy
children Rejoice in your brown brood,
simple mothers Not yours are the pale
cheek aud the wasted form, the lileless
eye and the languid step. Sometimes,
it may be, when the winds riseand the
waves come laundering upon the beach,
there are anxious hours for you because
of husband or father tossing out there
somewhere in the darkness sometimes,
alas a sore heart and many tears when
the little knot Of silent men come up
from the beach and lay gently upon its
pillow the pale, wet face that will speak
to you no more.
A race by themselves are these fisher
folk, mixing little with the people OF the
upper town, and keeping very much by
customs of their own. Danish, very
likely, or Morse, in origin, their blood IS
all but as pure yet as it was when their
forefathers landed ON these shores. Only
of late years the steamship and the school
board have made some invaslons upon
their traditional ideas. Seven miles to
the eastward along the coast, where the
white lime CLEANS yonder on the hori-
ION. in places exposed by the shifting
sand hills, are still to be found the re-
mains of villages-broken pottery,
bronze pins, fish-hooks and shell heaps
in which the ancestors of these folk
lived very much the same life as is lived
here to-day.
Here, spread on the bent grass to dry,
and brown as seaweed itself, lie miles OF
fishing nets, with their rows Of worn
cork floats, for the herring fishery for
the season is over, the west coast boats
have gone home through the canal, and
the gear is being laid 10y for the winter
In the end of April it will be wanted
again for the Loeb Tyne fishing, but
it will be the end OF June before the
herring nets are used on the east
coast again. The good woman coming
up the shore below with her
creel and pail of bait-mussels, sand
worms, and silver cleaning needle fish
is going now to bait for the later white
fishing the "long lines" with their
hundreds of hooks, which her husband
and his sons will take out to set before
daylight. Tomorrow morning, when
the boat Games home, she will have to
fill her creel with the haldocks and sell
them along the country side, or perhaps
the fish will be bought at auction by the
curers to be smoked with fragrant fir
cones in succulent, appetizlng "speld-
ings."
The quayhead in the morning. when
the fish auction is going on, is charac-
teristic sight, and the only occasion that
ANYTHING like business wakens in the
quiet place. The boats have come in
with the running tide and lie moored to
great iron rings in the landing place.
Curious names they have, mostly
double-the "Elspat and Ann or the
Cam and Margaret probably to re-
present tie wives or sweethearts OF two
partners. In the boats themselves lie
together heaps of lines, ropes, and sails,
With fish cleaning here and there among
them while the quay is Uttered with
oars and spars and cables enough to
make walking fine art. The fish have
been lifted out of each boat by its crew,
and when the women have divided them
into glittering heaps-a heap for each
man and one for the boat-the skipper
sells the boats heap, and its price settles
that of the others Here the shrewd
bargaining power of the fisher-folk comes
out, trained as it is by the narrow path
they thread between means and ends !;
while here the women who have no mans
hand to bring them home the harvest Of
the deep contrive to find their bread by
buying the fish they will afterward re-
tail The whole transaction is primitive
in the extreme, but one that sufficiently
serves its purpose.